Robert Weatherford: a Telluride original
The living room that looks like a small museum is in fact the studio of local artist Robert Weatherford, a Telluride original. (He paints at the far end of the room, not shown.)
Weatherford’s legacy is expressionism, a term describing a movement in art history in which traditional ideas of naturalism and representation take a back seat to exaggerations of shape and color. The point is to communicate with some urgency the artist’s emotions.
Feeling is paramount in Weatherford’s work, and virtuosic flashes just because he can, is the enemy.
The artist tends to hang his narratives on familiar objects such as his vast collection of tchotkes (bric-a-brac), floral bouquets, and aspen leaves. However, his images are never about the objects themselves. They are about the force fields emanating from the object.
“The objects in my work are talismans that invite me to show the world what they (the objects) know. My job as an artist is to surrender to their will.”